


Roots Under the Snow

by garafthel (sister_wolf)



Series: Flowers of Autumn [3]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: F/F, side stories for Flowers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 19:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3423617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_wolf/pseuds/garafthel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of side-stories for Flowers. Rating and pairings will vary; warnings will be given in story headers.</p><p>Seeds in the Desert (Dís/Tofa unrequited, pre-Flowers): <em>And if Tofa's eyes occasionally lingered on a pretty woman with hair as dark as a raven's wing--well, at least no one but her cousin knew her well enough to tease her about it.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Roots Under the Snow

The pale glow of dawn was just peeking over the horizon as the caravan readied to depart. The air was full of the sound of Dwarves shouting orders and ponies stamping and whinnying as the last-minute adjustments to wagons and cargo were made.

Tofa frowned, her eyes sweeping over the crowded square as she waited for the signal to move out. Half of the caravan was composed of experienced travelers, wary-looking traders with sturdy wagons and their own guards. She did not anticipate any trouble working with the merchants or their guards; they knew the way of the road and would pitch in to help protect the caravan as a whole if and when they ran into trouble.

No, it was the other half of the caravan that worried her: a group of ragged-looking families with young children and wagons that looked one rutted road away from losing an axle. They had a few experienced-looking warriors with them, but from what she could see the majority of their warriors looked too old or too young to be of much use in a fight.

One of the women from the ragged-looking group caught her eye. She had black hair worn mostly unbraided in the northern style and exactly the type of tall, curvaceous figure that Tofa found attractive. She would guess the woman to be barely past her first century and yet she spoke with authority, Dwarves easily twice her age listening to her with evident respect. 

The dark-haired woman turned away from a group of older women and greeted a man who shared her coloring and looked strikingly similar to her. Her brother, perhaps? He was trailed by a pair of children, the older one blond and sullen, the younger one brunet and excitable. The way they greeted each other was affectionate, but not like a married couple--definitely siblings, then.

"Problem?"

Tofa controlled her reflexive jerk, her cheeks flushing red at having been found distracted by a pretty girl. Hoping he wouldn't notice her embarrassment, she squinted up at her cousin. 

Looking far too amused for her comfort, Tomar grinned down at her from pony-back. 

She shrugged at him. "Not unless you count the fact that we've been hired to guard a caravan where half the travelers look like they couldn't protect themselves from a pack of wild dogs."

Tomar nodded, gracefully swinging down from his pony. "What I heard is that they're from Erebor."

"Erebor, eh?" She eyed the ragged-looking group again, seeing their lack of mature warriors in a new light. Likely most of their warriors had died attempting to defend their kingdom from the fire-drake.

"Aye." Tomar cut his eyes in the direction of the caravan master, a gold-pinching miserable cur they'd be glad to see the last of. "The great toad says we're not to wait for any of them if they fall behind."

"Take their gold and then leave them to the orcs? Sounds just like him," Tofa sneered. She smoothed her features to impassiveness as the caravan master turned and waved them over. 

Tomar gave her a sympathetic but pointed look. "Don't knife him. We need the pay."

"Yes, cousin," she grumbled, smirking at him. Tomar sighed and made a show of rolling his eyes at her.

The first few days were as uneventful as travel through the Dunlands could be. They beat back an attempted raid on the second day, easily sending the bandits running despite what Tofa found to be a worrisome lack of organization on the part of the caravan guards. But she had no authority over the guard, so she kept her own counsel on the matter other than complaining quietly to her cousin.

Tofa quickly settled back into the patterns of caravan travel, riding alongside the wagons during the day and trading off watches during the night. Her obviously foreign origins and the scarf she wore wrapped around her hair and covering her lower face made her an object of fascination to some of the Ereborean children, if apparently a frightening one. And if her eyes occasionally lingered on a pretty woman with hair as dark as a raven's wing--well, at least no one but her cousin knew her well enough to tease her about it.

One night about a week after they set out, the caravan stopped for the evening in a small valley cut through by a fast-running mountain stream. Tofa lounged on a flat boulder as she waited for the communal stew to be finished so that she could eat and then grab four hours of rest before her guard shift.

"Why do you wear a mask all the time?"

Startled from a light doze, Tofa sat up, blinking. 

The question had come from a blond boy being trailed after by a younger dark-haired boy. She recognized them as the children that the pretty Ereborean woman's brother had been minding that first morning. The rest of the Dwarflings stood clustered together about ten feet away, staring at them in fascination. She guessed that her questioner had been the only one brave enough to ask a question of the fearsome Southerner.

She pulled the cloth down below her chin and laughed at their exclamations of shock. "It's just to keep from breathing in road dust. I don't wear it all the time."

"Can I try it on?"

"Kíli!" the older boy chided. "You have to say "please.""

"Fíli! Kíli! Don't bother the guards. Go on, the lot of you! Dinner is ready."

The Ereborean woman crossed her arms and scowled at the Dwarflings until they scattered under the force of her glare. Turning back to Tofa, she smiled apologetically. "I'm so sorry. I hope they weren't bothering you."

"Not at all. Tofa, at your service."

"Dís daughter of Thráin, at yours and your family."

Dís had pale blue eyes, still exotic-looking to Tofa even after so many years in the north. She was almost as tall as Tofa and her wavy black hair fell over her shoulders and gently draped over the lush curves of her bosom. 

Tofa swallowed hard and ordered herself not to act like a blushing fool. "Are you and your family traveling with the caravan all the way to the Blue Mountains?"

"Yes. We plan to join the new settlement in the northern range. Have you been there before?"

"This will be my first visit to the new settlement, but I've been to the Blue Mountains many times guarding caravans from Dunland and the Iron Hills. Don't worry, we'll get you there safely." Tofa put a little hint of flirtiness into her smile and to her satisfaction Dís pinked slightly.

"We would have made the trip last summer, but Kíli's health wasn't...I didn't feel that it was safe for him to make such a long journey."

"Kíli is your nephew?" Tofa asked, still hoping despite the sudden sinking feeling in her stomach.

"My youngest son." Dís smiled, her face softening as she looked over to the Ereborean side of the camp. "Kíli is ten and Fíli is fifteen, and they have an amazing ability to get into trouble together. My little terrors," she added with the greatest affection.

"They're fine boys." Tofa steeled herself to ask, "And your husband, he's...?"

"Dead. Ten years now." Dís's face went blank, the forced calmness of her voice just as eloquent of grief as any amount of wailing and tearing at her hair. "A mining accident."

"May Mahal welcome him into His halls," Tofa said, the traditional words falling from her mouth automatically.

"Thank you. I should go--there's no telling what trouble they'll get into with my brother watching them. They have their Uncle Thorin wrapped around their little fingers."

"Of course. It was a pleasure meeting you."

Dís turned to walk away, hesitated, and then turned back. "Actually, there is one thing I would ask of you. Could you protect my sons? I know you're tasked with guarding the caravan as a whole, of course, but if you see them getting into trouble...?" She trailed off and shook her head, looking embarrassed. "No, I shouldn't even ask. Don't mind me."

"Dís, daughter of Thrain," Tofa said, placing her right hand over her heart. "I swear that I will protect your sons from danger while I draw breath." 

She went rigid in shock as Dís crossed the few feet of distance that separated them and pressed their foreheads together, a gesture normally reserved for close friends and family. ( _And lovers_ , a traitorous part of her mind whispered.) 

"Thank you, Tofa. You have no idea how much that means to a worried mother." Smiling, she gave Tofa's free hand a squeeze before turning and walking back to the Ereborean side of the camp.

Tofa stared after her for longer than she'd like to admit before shaking her head at her own idiocy and going to find some food.

Bowl of stew and flatbread in hand, she sat down next to her cousin inside the glow of one of the smaller campfires.

"Well?" Tomar asked in Haradri, elbowing her in the side. "I saw you talking to the pretty Ereborean girl you've been watching. Did she kiss you?"

"Leave it." She tore a chunk of flatbread and dunked it in the stew, eating with dogged determination to finish though it tasted like dust in her mouth. Food was never to be wasted, for one never knew when one's next meal might come.

"What's wrong? Does she not like the company of women?"

"She's a widow." The fact that Dwarves here in the north only ever married once, and that their marriages were only between two people, went without saying.

"Ah. Sorry, cousin." Tomar pressed his arm against hers, subtly expressing comfort. 

Tofa leaned against him as she forced herself to finish the rest of the stew. "She didn't kiss me, she was just thanking me for swearing that I would protect her sons."

"Thought you were done with making oaths." There was a thread of bitterness in his voice.

She flinched and gritted out, "Only the hopeless ones."

Tomar sighed and put his arm around her shoulders, leaning his head against hers in what she knew was a wordless apology for bringing up the end of the war. Tofa resisted for a second and then relaxed into the one-armed hug, silently forgiving him as always.

"Besides, they're just a couple of mischievous Dwarflings," she said in a determinedly light tone. "I hardly think that swearing to protect them is going to turn out to be particularly onerous, as oaths go."

***

Sixty-eight years later Tofa finds herself looking through prison bars at Fíli, son of Dís, as he pleads with her to spare the life of his young friend. There is a dead body on the floor and a sword in her hand, and if she were smart she'd make it two bodies and then go report the failed prison break to Skalgar.

" _There are no old fools, only dead ones_ ," she mutters to herself in Haradri.

Dís's son continues to stare at her with those pleading blue eyes, and she knows that she's being ridiculous. She had known Dís for a few months almost seventy years ago, and regardless of what Tofa might or might not have felt toward her, the oath she had sworn to Dís couldn't possibly be considered to still be in effect. 

She should walk away.

Instead Tofa sighs, swears at herself, and hands the sword to Fíli. 

She may be an old fool, but if she's going to die today, then she will die fulfilling the oath she made to a woman with raven-dark hair on a spring evening so many years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In writing this ficlet I realized that I had messed up the canon timeline. In book canon, the Dwarves of Erebor settled in the Blue Mountains in 2802, 62 years before Kíli was even born. However, in Flowers I've mentioned both Fíli and Kíli remembering living in Dunland when they were young. 
> 
> For the purposes of the Flowers timeline, I've pushed back the date of the Dwarves of Erebor settling in the Blue Mountains to 2874, when Fíli is 15 and Kíli is 10. Dís is a young widow of 114 years old during this story; her husband Víli died 10 years ago while she was pregnant with Kíli.
> 
> Fíli doesn't recognize Tofa when he meets her in Erebor because he only saw her face a few times as a child. While they're on the road, Tofa and her cousin habitually wear their scarves covering their lower faces (common custom coming from a dusty, arid land.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Roots Under the Snow [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3727522) by [the_dragongirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dragongirl/pseuds/the_dragongirl)




End file.
